Ammonia plays a vital role in feeding the world through fertilizer production, as well as having other industrial uses. However, current ammonia production processes rely heavily on fossil fuels, mostly natural gas, to generate hydrogen as a feedstock. There is an urgent need to re-design and decarbonise the production process to reduce greenhouse emissions and avoid dependence on volatile gas markets and a depleting resource base. Renewable energy driven electrolysis to generate hydrogen provides a viable pathway for producing carbon-free or green ammonia. However, a key challenge associated with producing green ammonia is managing low cost but highly variable wind and solar renewable energy generation for hydrogen electrolysis while maintaining reliable operation of the less flexible ammonia synthesis unit. To date, green ammonia production has only been demonstrated at pilot scale, and optimising plant configurations and scaling up production facilities is an urgent task. Existing feasibility studies have demonstrated the ability to model and cost green ammonia production pathways that can overcome the technical and economic challenges. However, these existing approaches are context specific, demonstrating the ability to model and cost green ammonia production for defined locations, with set configurations. In this paper we present a modelling framework that consolidates the array of configurations previously studied into a single framework that can be tailored to the location of interest. Our open-source green ammonia modelling and costing tool dynamically simulates the integration of renewable energy with a wide range of balancing power and storage options to meet the flexible demands of the green ammonia production process at hourly time resolution over a year or more. Unlike existing models, the open-source implementation of our tool allows it to be used by a potentially wide range of stakeholders to explore their own projects and help guide the upscaling of green ammonia as a pathway for decarbonisation. Using Gladstone in Australia as a case study, a 1 million tonne per annum (MMTPA) green ammonia plant is modelled and costed using price assumptions for major equipment in 2030 provided by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO). Using a hybrid (solar PV and wind) renewable energy source and Battery Energy Storage System as balancing technology, we estimate a levelized cost of ammonia (LCOA) between 0.69 and 0.92 USD kg_NH3^-1. While greater than historical ammonia production costs from natural gas, falling renewables costs and emission reduction imperatives suggest a major future role for green ammonia.

氨通过化肥生产以及其他工业用途在养活世界方面发挥着至关重要的作用。然而，目前的氨生产过程严重依赖化石燃料（主要是天然气）来生产氢气作为原料。迫切需要重新设计生产过程并使其脱碳，以减少温室气体排放，避免对波动的天然气市场和资源枯竭的依赖。可再生能源驱动的电解产生氢气为生产无碳或绿色氨提供了一条可行的途径。然而，与生产绿色氨相关的一个关键挑战是管理用于氢电解的低成本但高度可变的风能和太阳能可再生能源发电，同时保持不太灵活的氨合成装置的可靠运行。迄今为止，绿色氨生产只是中试示范，优化装置配置和扩大生产设施是一项紧迫的任务。现有的可行性研究表明，能够对绿色氨生产途径进行建模和成本计算，从而克服技术和经济挑战。然而，这些现有的方法是特定于上下文的，展示了在定义的位置和设置的配置中对绿色氨生产进行建模和成本计算的能力。在本文中，我们提出了一个建模框架，它将先前研究的一系列配置整合到一个可以针对感兴趣的位置进行定制的框架中。我们的开源绿色氨建模和成本计算工具动态模拟可再生能源与各种平衡电力和存储选项的集成，以满足绿色氨生产过程在一年或更长时间内以每小时时间分辨率的灵活需求。与现有模型不同，我们工具的开源实施允许潜在的广泛利益相关者使用它来探索他们自己的项目，并帮助指导绿色氨作为脱碳途径的升级。以澳大利亚的 Gladstone 为案例研究，使用澳大利亚能源市场运营商 (AEMO) 提供的 2030 年主要设备的价格假设对一座年产 100 万吨 (MMTPA) 的绿色合成氨厂进行建模和成本计算。_NH3 ^-1。虽然天然气的氨生产成本高于历史，但可再生能源成本的下降和减排的迫切性表明绿色氨在未来发挥重要作用。